Tag Archives: mergers

The Amalgamation Question

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The Amalgamation Question

Darcy Overland

From the time the first credit union was formed in Saskatchewan in 1910, 380 individual credit unions were incorporated. Today, there are 44 (SaskCentral). Co-opertives and credit unions usually start out small, serving the needs of geographically defined members. The power and appeal of the credit union is in locally-based decision making and connection to the local community. When credit unions have been in existence for multiple generations, the communities change, economies change, and environments change. The board is tasked with ensuring the credit union is sustainable both today and in the future. Can credit unions that were formed under different circumstances continue to provide quality services to their members in their new realities? When does the amalgamation question arise?   Continue reading →

Credit Unions in Canada: Design Principles for Greater Co-operation

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Murray Fulton, Brett Fairbairn, Dionne Pohler

The credit union system in Canada is at a crossroads. The following quotations from Central 1’s October 2016 report If not now, when? illustrate the challenges nicely:

Canada’s Credit Union system is approaching a tipping point. As the small player in the national financial services sector, Credit Unions are being consistently outpaced by the scale and marketing strength of the major banks.… Continue reading →

The State of Co-ops in Western Canada

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Murray Fulton

Murray Fulton

An American colleague recently asked me and a number of other academics and co-op leaders if we could provide a quick snapshot of large-scale co-operative activity in our geographical regions — consolidations, mergers, the nature of supply chains, and whatever else we felt was important. Here is my response. Continue reading →

Governance Issues in European Co-ops: Are There Lessons Here for Their Canadian Cousins?

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hanisch-2015

Markus Hanisch

The Centre’s second annual MacPherson Talk featured Dr. Markus Hanisch, managing director of the Institute for Research on Co-operatives at Humboldt University in Berlin.

Hanisch’s presentation — “Changing Governance in European Co-operatives: Simply Shifting or Losing Control?” — outlined a series of innovations occurring in European co-operative governance and the impact of these changes on co-operative performance. Based on data from 571 farmer co-operatives in the European Union, Hanisch concluded that co-operatives that have implemented certain governance innovations — professionalising and allowing outsiders to join their boards of directors, recruiting larger boards, and creating a governance model in which the co-op acts as a holding structure — have improved their performance. The research also notes, however, that these shifts towards corporate governance structures may affect member control. Continue reading →